News Story

Saints Row 4 to have "even broader appeal", THQ will 'talk in a year'

Danny Bilson, giving one of his last interviews as a THQ executive, reveals that plans for Saints Row 4 will be "even broader" in its appeal to the audience than Saints Row: The Third.

There's a lot of new characters and "new points of view" coming. They're about "a year away" from talking about it in detail. Bilson promised all what we love and more - it keeps on growing.

A standalone expansion is releasing for Saints Row: The Third, and it came about because Volition is free to create content without worry about the game's tools anymore.

"From a production point of view what's interesting is that the tools are all in place from Saints Row: The Third. There are a few things they worked on but the tools were all in place, so the guys at Volition got to just build content, explore their imaginations and get it on the screen," said Danny Bilson.

"There was no technology build involved. So it was amazing how quickly this came together."

The game engine and tools used for Saints Row: The Third should give the development team a much easier time in getting to content production a lot faster with Saints Row 4 as well.

"Well, of course I'm not allowed talk about Saints Row 4 now, but generally I'm incredibly excited about the content in Saints Row 4. There's a lot of new characters and new points of view in the game. I can't say much or I'll get killed. But I actually think it'll have an even broader appeal than the last one, based on the content," continued the THQ boss.

"I'm sure we're a year away from really talking about it, probably."

"But being involved with it, I love what they're doing with 4. It expands the appeal of the game. It has all the stuff you love, plus more stuff you've never seen in any game. Well, we kind of do that with Saints Row, right?"

"Every sequel has got to be better than the one before and have more value and more fun. The team is working really hard towards that right now very diligently."

The planned standalone expansion for Saints Row: The Third is due this autumn. It's called Enter the Dominatrix and follows on from the original ending where now alien invaders have arrived to conquer Earth. The leader of the Saints is abducted and locked in a virtual reality simulator. This lets Volition add a much sought after feature: superpowers.

"Faster than a speeding cyber jetbike, more powerful than a roided-out Luchadore, able to leap flying aircraft carriers in a single bound... That's the power you'll find inside the Dominatrix. Use it for good. Use it for evil. Use it for whatever you want. As always in Saints Row, it's up to you," commented Bilson.

THQ and Volition are just following Rockstar Games' lead with Red Dead Redemption when they came out with their Undead Nightmare standalone release. They had cowboys and zombies, THQ has aliens and superpowers.

"It was very similar to what happened with Red Dead and then the zombie pack. Once we saw the appetite for the product we thought, could we do something very fresh between this game and what would be ultimately the next game down the road? Could we do something sooner?"